Four Corners Property Trust, Inc. Q2 FY2020 Earnings Call

Good day, and welcome to the Four Corners Property Trust Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. After today’s presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Gerry Morgan, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Alison. During the course of this call, we will make forward-looking statements which are based on beliefs and assumptions made by us. Our actual results will be affected by known and unknown factors, including uncertainty related to the scope, severity and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic that are beyond our control or ability to predict. Our assumptions are not a guarantee of future performance, and some will prove to be incorrect. For a more detailed description of some potential risk, please refer to our SEC filings, which can be found at fcpt.com. All the information presented on this call is current as of today, July 30, 2020. In addition, reconciliation to non-GAAP financial measures presented on this call, such as FFO and AFFO can be found in the Company’s supplemental report, also available on our website. And with that, I’ll turn the call over to Bill.

Thank you, Gerry. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss our second quarter results. I hope all of you and your families are staying healthy. We are very pleased with our second quarter results and the strong level of collections reported for that quarter. As of today, collections are over 99% for July. To clarify for our investors, we have already received over 99% of the cash base rent payments for July across all leases in our portfolio. We have only agreed to abate about $20,000 in rent during July and have not agreed to any deferrals for the month, which we believe is a remarkable achievement considering the ongoing pandemic. This highlights both the low rents of our properties and the resilience of our tenants in adapting their operating models to the current COVID environment. Our team has worked diligently with our tenants to stay informed about their business operations and to negotiate lease modifications when necessary. This effort has resulted in collecting over 92% of second quarter rent payments. Additionally, we have agreed to defer approximately 3% of second quarter rent payments until later this year and have either agreed or expect to shortly agree to abate an incremental 4% of second quarter rents. This leaves us with only about 1% of our rents for Q2 unresolved. While many retail landlords have seen tenants requesting relief, FCPT has only agreed to a few deferral and abatement agreements where tenants offered favorable concessions in exchange. These concessions have included lease term extensions, enhanced financial reporting, improved guarantees, annual rent increases, exchanging fair market rent adjustments for stable contractual rent, and additional percentage rent, among other terms. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, these negotiations have led to longer lease durations and higher rent growth for us, strengthening our relationships with many of our tenants. We have maintained a position of being willing to listen to our tenants while ensuring that we capture value for our shareholders during any negotiations. FCPT has not provided free rent relief or deferments and has been cautious not to rush negotiations during the early stages of the pandemic when tenants were most concerned. Our history of acquiring and managing properties effectively has played an important role in determining where to focus our efforts in lease modifications. Most of the deferments and abatements occurred in the second quarter, contributing to our increased July collections of over 99%. We expect this positive collection trend to continue and anticipate resolving remaining rent balances from April through June in the near future. We have established a minimal credit reserve for a small number of tenants regarding second quarter rents. A new slide in our quarterly supplemental report titled COVID-19 Rent Collections Update summarizes the deferral and abatement numbers we’ve previously disclosed. The reopening of the country and its effect on restaurant traffic will continue to be unpredictable. However, we believe strong operators like Darden, Brinker, Bloomin’ Brands, RBI, and others in our portfolio will benefit from their scale in the long run, especially with their investments in technology focused on off-premise and to-go capabilities. It's important to note that FCPT has emphasized low-rent properties with strong sales, solid rent coverage, and robust balance sheets. We have seen many tenants in the quick-service and casual dining sectors return to sales nearing 2019 levels by late June, with some quick-service operators even exceeding those levels despite facing significant operational challenges. We believe our portfolio remains very healthy as we move forward, even with the anticipated market volatility and shifts in consumer behavior. Our conservative underwriting approach at FCPT helps distinguish us during turbulent times. Regarding our subsidiary, Kerrow, which operates six LongHorn Steakhouses in San Antonio under the management of Carol Dilts, the results were negatively impacted by COVID, showing a loss of $415,000 compared to a positive contribution of over $200,000 in the first quarter. Carol and her team have done an outstanding job under the circumstances, providing us with vital insights into our tenants' challenges and adaptations. I expect Kerrow to recover strongly later this year. In terms of our second-quarter results, we achieved AFFO per share of $0.34, reflecting flat year-over-year results, which included about $0.04 per share of dilution from COVID-related items. Our AFFO this quarter accounts for the deferred rents mentioned earlier that we expect to receive by year-end but excludes second quarter rents we anticipate abating in connection with lease modifications. On acquisitions, we resumed activities in the latter half of June, focusing on acquiring only the most stable and creditworthy properties while applying rigorous screening for new investments. We acquired 11 properties in the second quarter for a total of $32.7 million at an initial weighted average cash yield of 6.3%. In July, we added five more properties for $10.3 million with an initial average cash yield of 6.5%. Most leases on these new acquisitions are with corporate operators or guaranteed by the corporate entity, and a significant number of leases are ground leases where FCPT owns the land. While the prices of these acquisitions were consistent with our historical yield range, we believe the quality of the real estate and tenant credit strength enhances our overall portfolio. We anticipate more acquisitions of this caliber in the coming months. Lastly, before I hand it over to Gerry for a closer look at the financial results, I want to share one operational update. We have moved into a larger office space in Mill Valley and look forward to welcoming any of you who are in the area once travel resumes. Our remote work setup has proven effective. In summary, we have achieved strong rent collections for Q2, among the best in the net lease sector, and continue to maintain a high level of collections for July, which we hope to sustain moving forward. We are excited to be back in the acquisition arena and are focused on building our portfolio. Now, I’ll turn it over to Gerry to discuss our financial results.

Thanks. As Bill mentioned, we want to highlight a couple of points on revenue recognition in the second quarter, AFFO and also outline the impact of COVID-19 related variances in our Q2 results. We generated $34.8 million of cash rental income in the first quarter after excluding $1.9 million of non-cash straight-line rental adjustments, and after backing out $1.4 million of rental revenue receivables we expect to abate. Two comments on the accounting this quarter. First, on rent deferrals, AFFO includes $1.1 million of deferred rent, which we are recognizing in Q2 and booking as receivable. Regarding the rent deferrals we have agreed to so far, we expect payment by the end of this year. Secondly, on the rent abatements, after discussions with our auditors, we believe the appropriate GAAP revenue guidance in cases where the Company anticipates abating rent for certain tenants as part of lease amendments is to recognize the revenue for the abated rent in the current period despite the expectation of non-payment due to the ongoing lease amendment discussions and agreements. For the second quarter of 2020, this $1.4 million amount is recorded in rental revenue and accounts receivable. The abated rent will then be treated as a lease incentive in Q3 and amortized against rental revenue over the remaining life of the lease as part of straight-line rent adjustments to arrive at GAAP rental revenue. We deducted the $1.4 million in rent we expect to abate from Q2 in arriving at our AFFO. We did not deduct the to-be-abated rent from FFO in accordance with the NAREIT definition of FFO. We have provided supplemental disclosure at the bottom of the FFO, AFFO statement in our disclosure so investors are aware of the matter and can make any adjustments you feel warranted. This supplemental disclosure on the FFO, AFFO statement also shows that we had $1.5 million of uncollected base rent included in revenues as of June 30 in addition to rent that was deferred or expected to be abated. With our announcement of the updated 92% collection result for the second quarter, you can see that much of this receivable has now been collected. In addition, in performing our quarterly collectability and credit analysis, we recorded a non-material reserve of approximately $100,000 for accounts receivable in the second quarter. On a run-rate basis, the current annual cash base rent for leases in place as of June 30, 2020 is $144.1 million. Our weighted average 10-year annual cash rent escalator remains at approximately 1.5% and virtually all of the rent deferrals and abatements we have agreed to cover second quarter rent, so we believe that $144.1 million is a fair representation of the going forward cash base rent for the portfolio. You will note that we did not disclose our estimate for our tenants' EBITDAR rent coverage for this quarter. This is because much of the financial reporting that we receive from tenants still includes time periods prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we wanted to be careful not to present a number that may no longer be representative of current tenant operations. It is our expectation that as tenant operations normalize, we will see rent coverage return to our historical levels over time. The second quarter AFFO per share of $0.34 represents flat year-over-year results and a $0.03 per share decline from the first quarter of 2020. Results were impacted negatively by $0.04 per share for the following COVID-related variances, which were offset partially by the accretive benefit of first quarter and second quarter acquisitions. Approximately 50% of the impact or $0.02 per share was from the $1.4 million rental abatement in connection with the lease modifications as we’ve outlined above. Approximately 25% of the impact or $0.01 per share was due to the Kerrow operating loss given its operations were closed or negatively impacted for much of the quarter. And approximately 25% of the impact or $0.01 per share was due to other COVID-related expenses, including abandoned deal costs, lease modification costs, the small credit reserve I mentioned earlier, and higher interest expense to fund excess cash reserves that we held in April and May. Turning to the balance sheet, since our last update, the funding of the final $50 million of nine-year notes of the $125 million private note offering that was announced in March was completed on June 9. Regarding our cash and revolver balance, we ended the second quarter with $4.5 million of revolver balance and about $5 million of cash reserves. And importantly, $245 million of availability on our revolving line of credit. As a reminder, we paid our full second quarter dividend, which was fully covered by recurring cash flows. Finally, our leverage metrics remain quite strong, with a fixed charge coverage of 4.8 times in the second quarter and net debt-to-adjusted EBITDAR of 5.6 as of June 30. Our revolver maturity can be extended to November 2020 at our option, which is also the timing of the first $150 million of term debt maturity. We remain committed to maintaining a net debt leverage target below 5.5 times to 6 times. With that, I’ll turn it back over to Bill for closing comments.

Thanks, Gerry. We remain focused on staying nimble in the current environment. We are pleased with the strong rent collection results and have our year back to the ground on new investment opportunities. We are available to answer any questions on the quarter or the portfolio, so please reach out if you’d like to speak. Finally, a special note of acknowledgment to our colleague, Laura Gatti, who has worked tirelessly this quarter on collections. Laura was born in Colombia and is the first in her family to immigrate to the United States. We are happy to report that she passed her US citizenship test yesterday. Way to go, Laura. I’d like to turn it back to the operator for Q&A.

Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Our first question today is from Nate Crossett of Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Hey. Good morning, guys.

Good morning, Nate.

Hey. I was wondering if you could kind of just characterize the deal flow today now that you guys are acquiring again. How would you kind of size the pipeline today versus what it was pre-COVID?

So, I would say, the opportunity set, we haven’t seen higher cap rates for the high-quality stuff that we tend to buy. They’ve been quite stable. But I would say that it seems like deals are a little easier to come by, volume remained similar to what it was before, even though we’ve closed on some assets recently. So, we feel really good that we’re very well positioned relative to our peers to grow going forward.

Okay. I wanted to get your guys' thoughts on this proposal by Biden maybe eliminating the 1031 Exchange. Would that have any effect on you guys?

I can see how it can be quite positive as pricing, I think, quite often is set for these smaller one-off deals by that market. But we’ve seen 1031 Exchange legislation proposed in the past. So, I don’t want to just jump to any judgments. But, I guess, I would say, cautiously optimistic.

Okay. And then just finally on, how much you guys have left to close on this Seritage portfolio and some of these other strategic portfolio sales that you guys have done?

I don’t think we’ve disclosed that. But you can back into the math. And essentially what I would say is, some of the properties in those portfolios we’ve dropped, but in most cases, we’ve replaced them with new properties, and in fact, in some of the cases, we think the deal sizes will increase. So, it’s still very substantive.

Okay. Just one quick last one, do you guys own any Dunkin’ Donuts? Because I saw they’re closing 8% of their restaurants today?

I don’t believe so.

Okay.

They’re typically in line.

Okay.

Our next question today is from Sheila McGrath of Evercore. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Bill, I was wondering, if you could give us some insight on how much of the portfolio is open and operating. And do most restaurants still have capacity constraints in place?

Yeah. I would say, to the best of my knowledge, virtually all of it’s open and operating to some extent, and most are taking diners into the restaurant, those that are operating on curbside. What I would say is, we’ve seen states go from curbside to 25 to 50 to 75 to 100 and then very often back to 75 or 50 in states like Texas and Florida. But generally speaking, almost all the restaurants are open, and I think we’ll just see it be a fluid situation as time goes on. I would also say that I think a lot of our casual dining restaurants are seeing continued elevated to-go sales, which is something I think we’ll be stickier than many had initially predicted. Almost all of the properties are operating. Sure.

Okay, great. And then, just to clarify, I know you went through a number of lease changes that could be possible, but the abatement part that you mentioned, was it most typically that you gave rent abatement if a tenant agreed to a lease extension? And if not, like what were the other good amendment changes for Four Corners?

Sure. In all the deferment and abatement discussions, I think almost all of them included lease term extensions of between five and, in some cases, 10 years. We added some properties to master leases. We changed renewal terms to be more favorable. In some cases, we changed rent growth that was 10% every five years to annual growth, which makes a little bit more attractive and provides consistent income. We had discussions with tenants about purchasing properties off their balance sheet. But as you said, Sheila, the big one is lease extensions. And so, we were able to negotiate a very significant number of meaningful lease extensions for what we view is quite moderate rent abatement or deferral.

Okay, great. And one last question about the recent investments, many of which have shorter lease terms. Could you explain the appeal of that? Do you get better pricing, or can you clarify the lease length?

Sure. I think one of the advantages of Four Corners, as it was created we had very long lease terms. So, it allows us to layer in some diversity of lease terms earlier than sort of the 10-year portfolio average. And so, as you mentioned, you get better pricing, better credit, while selecting for properties that have a very high level of performance and given that we have very little lease turn in the next several years, it’s something that we can do pretty favorably. And of course, during something like the current environment that’s the first thing we go to when we open up the lease document is to get more term.

Okay. Great, thank you.

Our next question today is from Rob Stevenson of Janney. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys.

Good morning.

What percentage of the $144 million of ABR that you talked about earlier is non-restaurant today? And then what percentage of that is also ground lease?

A couple of percent is non-restaurant at this point. It’s almost entirely restaurant. And we don’t disclose the ground lease percentage, other than to say, a significant number of the outparcel transactions that we’re doing are ground leases. But that’s not something that we break out.

Okay. And then with acquisition volume returning for you guys, once you want to use some of the liquidity on the balance sheet today, how are you looking to finance future deals from the equity side with a $24 stock price? Are the returns attractive enough that funding via common even if that level makes sense to you? Do you ramp up dispositions to trade in and out, issue preferred? How are you guys thinking about equity financing in the current environment?

Yeah. Certainly, making acquisitions with the $24 stock price is still accretive. It’s not as accretive as it once was. But it is still accretive and we are committed to keeping our balance sheet in that 5.5 times to 6 times levered place. So, not really a huge change, Rob.

Okay. And any plans to sell more assets, especially if the rhetoric on the 1031 exchanges starts to ramp up even more?

We always keeping in mind, and we have actually in the last couple of months received some really attractive offers to purchase some of our Darden assets. Properties that performed through the pandemic had very strong coverage, great corporate credit are in high demand. So that’s something we always consider, but it is interesting over the last couple of months we’ve had some really attractive inbound interest.

Okay. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Yeah, of course.

Our next question today is from R.J. Milligan of Baird. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning.

Good morning, R.J.

Regarding the second quarter abatements and deferrals, can you categorize them based on whether they were due to business closures or simply a decline in revenues while they were open, as opposed to strong credits looking to extend their term and defer rent payments?

I don’t think there is a huge stream one way or the other. We just had constructive conversations with the tenants and tried to figure out what they were looking for and what we wanted to get in return. It was a pretty organic process that happened over a couple of months, but we spent a lot of time on the phone with our tenants, trying to figure out ways that we can help them in this particularly unusual time. But at the same time, we need to ensure that our shareholders get value from modifying leases. And I think we’ll be able to show more and more that we’re getting really attractive terms when we agree to modify.

And then just to clarify one point you made in your opening remarks, no deferrals and only $20,000 of abatements in July.

Correct.

Okay. And then longer-term...

I’d really encourage you to check out that new table we put in the supplemental. It really lays it out clearly the progress we’ve made.

Okay, thanks. And then the longer-term, as we move through sort of this pandemic and the ensuing recession, do you think the cap rates for the types of assets that you guys own typically low rents and a successful track record through this will move lower over time?

I think it’s a great question. Too soon to tell. But I have seen offering memorandum for properties that performed really well through this, especially QSR with some cap rates that seem to me to be lower than in the past. That being said, I think our pipeline carries us through 2020 in really good shape. And I do think there’ll be some interesting opportunities for those that are well capitalized. I know the industry can move fast. I think there’s going to be a lot of change coming over the next year as you infer in your question.

Great. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, R.J.

Our next question today will come from Nikita Bely of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Good morning. On deal pipeline, the acquisition opportunities that you guys are looking at, how many of those are outside of the mall parcel agreements that you already have talked about in the past?

A number of them are. And we’re looking at some non-restaurant opportunities as well. So, it’s a nice diverse group. In addition to some of the mall outparcels that we’ve announced in the past, we’re working on some new ones. Obviously, shopping center, strip center, grocery-anchored, and all sorts of retail landlords are looking for ways to access liquidity, and outparcels are a great way to do it. So, it’s both a mix of non-announced outparcel deals and deals sourced from other net lease owners; it’s really diverse, and we feel quite good about where we stand.

Is there a way to look in rough terms to put either a number of percentage terms, the percentage of outside of malls?

We don’t provide acquisition guidance in a percentage.

Okay.

Obviously, it would allow you to back into it. So, I would simply say, I think we’re in as good of a place as we’ve been in our history as far as pipeline and really advantageous things to execute on.

What about the restaurant traffic, can you just expand a little bit on kind of the traffic trends that you’re seeing in the restaurants in your portfolio right now?

Yeah. I would say that, by the end of June, we were back to quite comparable to 2019 levels. QSR at or above 2019, casual dining typically around down 10 to down 20. Maybe if you were more focused on the breakfast daypart, it was a little worse than that, that’s sort of been slower to recover. So, we felt really quite good with additional cases in the last few weeks, traffic has slowed. But I think we’ll see that come back if cases begin to wane again. So, I think the notable thing is, in the last handful of weeks we haven’t had tenants requesting any sort of relief or accommodation, which I think is a quite good sign.

And is there a way that you guys know approximately, like what’s the percentage of revenue the restaurant are making now versus the pre-COVID level, whether it’s for Darden or non-Darden at the aggregate level, like do you have a sense as to making $0.90 revenue on the $1 that they used to make before COVID, is there a way to get a feel for that?

We keep a close eye on public companies and have daily conversations with our tenants about their performance. It varies significantly by location. We manage six restaurants in San Antonio, which provides us with a real-time case study on their operations. We monitor this closely. However, our rents and lease performance are not directly linked to customer traffic or tenant revenue since they are based on fixed contracts.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next question today will come from John Massocca of Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead.

Good morning.

Hey, John.

So, maybe just a little bit kind of expanding on some of your earlier comments, and apologies if I missed this in the prepared remarks. But could we expect any more kind of these rent for lease modification transactions in the next couple of quarters?

Yeah. I would say that we feel it’s largely behind us. But it’s obviously a fluid situation. But as of now, we feel it’s largely behind us.

Okay. Understood. In terms of sourcing the recent non-restaurant transactions, how are you acquiring those? Are they one-off deals, or are they part of a portfolio that includes restaurant properties from sellers? Or are you sourcing these on an individual basis?

Most of our acquisitions have come from outparcel deals that were part of a larger portfolio. However, we are now examining individual properties and small portfolios outside of the outparcel strategy. It's a diverse approach, and we are indifferent regarding how these transactions are presented to us. Once they are included in our portfolio, their performance will be assessed individually. We are indeed considering outparcel transactions, but we have also observed opportunities in other sectors beyond restaurants, such as convenience stores and medical facilities.

So you are indifferent to whether a transaction is related to restaurants or not, or do you still prefer restaurant properties?

I think we’re looking at the asset level. That’s too high level to make decisions on. We’re looking at the attractiveness of the asset, its location, the credit worthiness, where the rents are set, what kind of diversification it provides, et cetera.

Okay. And then maybe with regards to the leverage, has there been any change in the view on leverage as we kind of come out of a pandemic or maybe even given the stability kind of rental performance here in the last quarter?

I think we five years ago chose an appropriate level. And I think the pandemic has evidenced that being conservative financially is the right move, and it allows you to get through environments like this and then be aggressive when the opportunity set allows.

Okay. That’s it from me. Thank you very much.

Great.

Congrats to is it Laura or Laurie?

Laura.

Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude our question-and-answer session. At this time, I’d like to turn the conference back over to Bill Lenehan for any closing remarks.

Great. Thanks, everyone. And sorry this call went a couple of minutes longer than typical. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Gerry and I are here, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out, we’d love to chat. Thanks so much. Cheers.

The conference is now concluded. We thank you for attending today’s presentation. And you may now disconnect your lines.